Slow Dance in Purgatory

by Amy Harmon

  “Maggie…oh, no…Maggie! Not here, baby. Not now.” Johnny sunk to the ground beside her and scooped her up in his arms. Her head lolled against his chest and violent coughing shook her.

  “Roger told me I could be with you. That’s what I want. I want to stay with you. Lay here with me Johnny.”

  A sick cold hate curled its way through Johnny’s gut.

  “Roger?” He knew what her response would be. His Maggie, his girl who could see ghosts, had had a visit from Roger Carlton. It seemed the vindictive bastard wasn’t ready to let it go, even still. Did he really seduce this innocent girl with deadly lies, all for revenge?

  “I saw you, Johnny. The night Billy died. I saw you and Billy fall. Then I saw Roger. He was young again. Aren’t there any old spirits in heaven?” A fit of coughing gripped her, and Johnny looked frantically at the front entrance. Where were the firemen? Hadn’t Gus known Maggie was still inside? Maggie seemed unconcerned with her safety and continued on, coughing and struggling for breath as she spoke.

  “Roger asked me where you were. Then he told me that I.... could be like you and that we would be together.” Maggie’s voice was raw, but it was her words that echoed with torment and filled him with anguish.

  “He lied, Maggie. That sick bastard lied. If you stay here, you die. You go the way of the angels – the place where people like you and Billy go when this life is over. If you die today, Maggie, I will be without you, and you will be without me. We won’t be together, Maggie. People like me and Roger – I think we go somewhere else.”

  A huge crash shook the rotunda, and glass shattered and popped above them from the heat. Johnny had to get Maggie out of the school. Honeyville hadn’t had much of a fire department fifty years ago, and he was guessing she still didn’t. If there were firemen here, no doubt they were concentrating their efforts on the East end, hoping to keep the fire from spreading and consuming the whole school. They wouldn’t succeed. The fire burned like a raging disease, and he could feel the school succumbing. When it finally fell, so would he.

  Maggie was clinging to him, and her breathing was labored. He had to get her out, now.

  “I love you, Johnny,” she whispered hoarsely. Her eyes were rimmed in red but they spoke the truth. “I won’t leave you.”

  “I love you too, Maggie. Never forget that. Hold on to me now, baby.” With a guttural war cry, Johnny gathered every ounce of energy available to him and blasted through the front door, Maggie held securely in his arms.

  Maybe it was the force with which he hurled himself into the void, but he was not repelled like before. He felt the swarm descend on him instantly– that writhing black mass of something Other devouring him as he pushed into the barrier between Purgatory and hell that had held him bound. He clung to Maggie, to her sweetness, to her goodness, and to his pure intent to save her life at all cost. He kept moving. He felt the splintering, all-consuming blackness curl around him and within him. Just one more step…and then one more…he felt himself disintegrating and his thoughts scatter into nonsense as he surrendered himself to the demands of death. But still he pushed forward, with her cradled against him, until there was only oblivion.

  ***

  Chaos was rampant beyond the shaky perimeter the local police and fire fighters had erected. The ten kids who were responsible for starting the blaze had been detained and were in varying states of shock and hysteria. Parents had been called, on-lookers blocked the roads, and every Honeyville policeman was present, and their flashing lights adding to the surreal atmosphere of tragedy and mayhem. The police were trying to question the teens while maintaining order of the growing crowds lining the perimeter. The local fire crew and their small fire truck shot a steady blast of water into the fiercest section of the fire, and the trucks and crews from nearby towns had arrived to help, but there weren’t resources, training, or manpower sufficient for the inferno before them. Amidst all of this, Irene Honeycutt Carlton cried and begged for someone to help her niece, who was believed to still be inside the school.

  Gus Jasper had tried to go back inside for Maggie after he had wobbled outside with his grandson on his back, but he’d been forcibly restrained and had fought his detainment until he’d collapsed and had to be carried to the ambulance where his grandson was already being treated. So Irene continued to plead with whomever would listen - soot and tears leaving grimy grooves down her cheeks. But her cries fell on helpless ears.

  The police and firemen were doing all they could. No one had actually seen Maggie inside the school or even entering the school, although her haphazardly parked car was a good indication that she was there. At Irene’s insistence, several attempts had been made before the firemen had been called out and all manpower was concentrated on fighting the fire. The fire chief couldn’t continue to send men into a building of that size and scope, with no idea where to look, while fire blazed around them.

  To those gathered watching the high school go up in flames, it seemed as if the girl simply appeared through the smoke and ash. It was late – almost one a.m. on Saturday morning, but the sky was lit with a red glow and filtered orange light shown through the haze. A shout went up among those closest to the perimeter.

  “There’s someone there!”

  “Look! There’s someone coming out of the school!”

  “Is it two people?”

  For a moment the crowd was still, all eyes peering through the smoke that camouflaged the figures that appeared and then were lost again in the haze. Then the shouts went up again.

  “Someone is being carried!” The waves of heat created a mirage that made the girl look as if she were floating above the earth or being carried in the arms of providence. And then she was down, tumbling across the ground as if she had been tossed from the bowels of hell.

  “She’s fallen! Someone help her!”

  Three firemen closest to the unfolding drama threw down their hose and raced toward the crumpled form. Just as they reached her, the whole right side of the school collapsed in on itself, shaking the entire structure and sending the huge beams that ringed the center rotunda domino-ing over like toy blocks. The firemen scooped up the unconscious girl and ran for their lives as heavy debris and fiery ash rained down around them.

  20

  “RETURN TO ME”

  Dean Martin - 1958

  The school was a blackened shell when the firemen eventually doused the last burning ember. The east wing was a pile of rubble and glass; the west wing was still standing but it looked gutted and skeletal. Only the rotunda that jutted out from the front of the school had escaped being consumed by fire, but it had been reduced to a heap of beams and balconies that had crumpled when the east wing collapsed. The firemen were beyond weary, their suits and faces slick with soot and sweat, their eyes kohl rimmed and bloodshot, their countenances grim. The popular old Mayor of Honeyville had arrived in the early morning hours and had held vigil along with an ambulance, several police officers, and the principal of the school – watching as the stately edifice completely succumbed to fire. It was all the more shocking to behold as the cheerful winter sun began to peek its rosy face over the eastern hills, lightening the sky, mocking the devastation before them.

  The crowds had all gone, along with the two ambulances carrying Gus Jasper, his grandson, and Maggie O’Bannon, who was miraculously still alive, though no one knew how she had managed to walk out of the school in her condition. She had a few minor burns and scrapes from the falling debris and ash, but it was the smoke inhalation that should have killed her. All three of the casualties had been taken to a regional hospital, Maggie in critical condition.

  There was a great deal more work to be done, but for the time being everyone needed to head home and get a few hours of sleep. Decisions would need to be made. The other half of the school year remained, and about 600 high school students were now without a school. Principal Jillian Bailey spoke quietly with Mayor Parley Pratt about several possibilities as firemen pulled off their blackened
helmets, stored their gear, and wound the long hoses. A large back hoe had been put to work through the firefight, dumping loads of cool black earth onto the still smoldering debris. They watched it as it trundled around in front of the building, not far from where they huddled, commiserating and observing. It was then that the weary operator made his stunning discovery.

  He had been working primarily on the east side, but the heat of the smoldering rubble made it almost impossible to do any more. For the last hour, he had begun clearing the loose debris from the front of the school where the fire had not spread. The beams had fallen like dominoes, coming to rest in a peculiar circular pattern, each beam supported by the one next to it. The high ceiling and glass walls had been flung outward, as if an inner explosion had forced everything back from the center of the rotunda. It was this debris that had prevented him from moving in close enough to see what he now observed. From his high perch in the cab of the backhoe, the operator noted that some of the large ceramic tiles that had graced the entrance were visible through the toppled beams and debris. He paused, peering down through the rubble at something that didn’t make any sense.

  “Sweet Mary mother of….! “ The driver of the backhoe stopped the tractor and jumped down from his perch, scrambling over fallen beams and then disappearing from view. It was mere seconds before he was back, waving his arms frantically and calling for help.

  “Help me! Hurry! There’s someone down here! I got a pulse, but I don’t know how long he’s been here or if we can even get him out.”

  Officers and firemen came running, the two EMTs from the lone remaining ambulance grabbing a gurney and a medical kit and following close behind.

  The first man to reach the back hoe operator was a young police officer, unburdened by heavy coveralls or gear. What he saw was beyond belief. Lying on the exposed tiles of the destroyed rotunda, surrounded by blackened debris and fallen beams, was a young man. He was clearly unconscious, and his once white t-shirt was soaked in blood. The officer maneuvered himself as close as he could, trying to gauge the man’s injuries.

  “That’s a gunshot wound!” He felt for a pulse just as the driver of the back hoe had done minutes before. The pulse was weak and thready, and from the looks of it, the kid had lost a lot of blood.

  “We gotta get this beam out of the way so that we can get the gurney down here and keep him as flat as possible.” One EMT scrabbled down beside the victim and pulled an oxygen mask over his head and then immediately began an investigation of his wound. The rest of the men tugged and heaved the largest beams out of the way, clearing a path for the gurney to be dropped down. Within seconds, the firemen and emergency medical workers had the gravely injured young man loaded up and were racing toward the ambulance praying that they had found him in time to save his life.

  “Principal Bailey!” The young policeman gestured to her wildly. She came at a run, followed by the mayor, who at 75 years old was still insatiably curious and quite spry. It had been all he could do to remain back as the emergency workers had pulled the wounded man from the rubble.

  “None of us recognize this kid – is he one of yours?” The policeman indicated the young man on the gurney, wondering if the principal could identify him as a Honeyville High student. One of the EMTs pulled the mask from the young man’s face, giving her a better look before he snapped it back into place.

  Jillian Bailey felt the blood drain from her head and the world spin around her as if she were caught in a vortex that defied time and space. Yes, he was hers. But not in the way the EMT meant. She knew him. She knew him intimately. How could she not? She had seen his picture every day of her life. He had haunted her mother’s dreams and darkened her every waking moment with the never-ending questions – Where is my son? What happened to my son? Jillian Bailey shook her head, and managed to choke out a response, the only response she could give.

  “No, he isn’t a student.”

  Mayor Parley Pratt, his face pursed in concentration, watched as they loaded the gun-shot victim into the ambulance and pulled away, sirens blaring.

  “That kid sure looked familiar. I know I’ve seen his face. He almost looked like that kid that disappeared all those years ago when I was just a young police officer. What was his name?”

  “Johnny Kinross,” Principal Bailey whispered.

  “That’s right…Johnny. Your daddy never stopped looking for him, did he? Strange, huh? This kid found in the very place Johnny Kinross was last seen.”

  ***

  Maggie should have woken up by now. The doctors scratched their heads, and the nurses clucked their tongues and pursed their lips. But Maggie stayed locked in a coma, unmoving and unresponsive. Tubes ran in and out of her, machines beeped, Irene pled, but still she slept.

  Gus had been released from the hospital after 24 hours of observation. Shad, who had suffered from heat stroke and some minor smoke inhalation, was released the day after that. The three of them, Shad, Irene and Gus, had kept vigil in the Intensive Care Unit’s waiting room for the last four days. Principal Bailey had found them there.

  Gus was shocked by her drawn, colorless face. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but she kept herself neat and trim, and her face was intelligent and kind. Today she bore the look of someone who had suffered a terrible loss – or a terrible shock. Gus wondered if it was the destruction of the school that had so adversely affected her. Principal Bailey inquired after Maggie. Her sincerity and genuine concern for her student was evident, and Irene thanked her warmly.

  Then Principal Bailey asked Gus if she could have a word with him privately. Gus nodded his consent and followed her from the waiting room. He was confused when she led him to a hospital room not far from Maggie’s. She got permission for them to enter, and when they did she closed the door firmly behind them. The curtain was partially pulled around the bed, and Gus couldn’t see who occupied it.

  Jillian Bailey approached the patient and bid Gus to follow her. Gus did so hesitantly, uncomfortable about intruding into the sick room of someone he didn’t know. But that was where he was wrong, for he did know the person in the bed. He stared down at the flesh and blood body of a ghost he had seen off and on for fifty-three years. He had no doubt it was him. Johnny’s hair was brushed off his face and slightly mussed by his convalescence. He had more tubes and machines connected to his inert form then Maggie did. It looked as if he’d sustained some kind of wound to his chest though he seemed to be recovering well and breathing on his own.

  “Do you know who he is, Mr. Jasper?” Jillian Bailey asked, her eyes locked on Johnny’s face. “You were the only one I thought might know.”

  “What happened to him?” Gus whispered, stalling, unwilling to give her a response.

  “He was shot.” Principal Bailey’s tone was brisk and harsh.

  Gus staggered a little and clung to the rungs on the bottom of the bed.

  “We found him at the school, lying in the debris. He wasn’t burned, and he doesn’t seem to have suffered from smoke inhalation.”

  “Is he gonna make it?” Gus asked quietly.

  “Yes. He is strong and ….young.” She tripped over the irony in her words. “He is pretty heavily medicated right now, but they were able to repair the damage. If this had happened fifty years ago…..he surely…would have died.”

  Gus’s head snapped up, and their gazes locked. A pregnant pause followed. Jillian Bailey continued on, her deep agitation apparent in the lines on her face and the stiffness of her body.

  “Nobody knows how he got there or when he got there. Nobody seems to know anything about him….so I’ll ask you again. Do you know who he is, Mr. Jasper?” Jillian Bailey folded her arms tightly around herself, waiting for his answer, watching his face.

  Gus looked back at her for a moment – trying to determine whether she asked him because she didn’t know or because she did. He decided it was the later. Funny…he had forgotten all about her connection to Johnny Kinross. She had left Honeyville when she went to college ov
er three decades ago. She’d had a long career in education and had only come home when her elderly parents, old Chief Bailey and his wife, Dolly Kinross Bailey, started ailing and needed her care. She had taken the job as Principal when it had become available about eight years ago. Her parents had died relatively close together soon after. Gus had noted their passing with sadness. Jillian Bailey had never married, but she had remained in Honeyville these last few years and seemed to love what she did. In Gus’s opinion, she was good at it.

  His eyes met hers briefly. He was a simple man. He knew that life held mysteries and wonders that he would never understand or comprehend. He didn’t know how it was possible, yet he didn’t doubt the evidence before him. Gus nodded firmly, giving her what she desired. Jillian Bailey slumped as if the truth she sought had broken her back. After a moment, she nodded at him as well and moved to speak, but then bit back what she was going to say. He could tell from her conflicted expression that she needed to hear him say the words. She needed for someone to say, out loud, that the impossible, the unexplainable, was indeed reality. And so he did.

  “That’s Johnny Kinross, Ms. Bailey. That boy is your brother.”

  ***

  So now Gus was here, with Maggie, and he had something to tell her that might bring her back among the living. He had faith that she could hear him, and trusted that it would make all the difference.

  “Miss Margaret….Can you hear me? I need you to listen now, honey. I saw him. They found him in the rubble. He’s here, Miss Margaret. Johnny is here – and he’s alive.” Gus squeezed her hand as hard as he could and repeated his words several more times, speaking slowly and clearly.